


The Burial of Fox Mulder

by IneffableFangirl_writes



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, Gen, It's a sadfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-04-25
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:48:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23844004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IneffableFangirl_writes/pseuds/IneffableFangirl_writes
Summary: Takes place in my AU where Mulder and Scully get married and have 2 kids because they deserve it damnit.Exactly what it says on the tin, it's about Mulder's funeral.Taken from the backlog of fic on my computer, brought to you by quarantine.
Relationships: Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Comments: 1
Kudos: 16





	The Burial of Fox Mulder

It is cold and rainy on the day that they buried Fox Mulder. Winter at the cusp of spring with grey slush in the gutters as the rain slowly melts the remains of last week’s snow away and Dana Katherine Scully-Mulder wears a black pair of heels with her mourning dress. Her hair is white now, redheads never go grey, and her grown children hover beside her, Maggie at one elbow and William holding a large umbrella over the both of them. 

Standing outside the Catholic church where a funeral mass had just been said, the three watch their father’s coffin be carefully lifted into the hearse. Mulder would have been amused by the priest’s homily, some of the eulogies given. He had told his wife to have a Catholic funeral because it would help her. He even requested a priest, one of William’s childhood friends who always laughed at his jokes and other than a remark here or there, had never pressed him to join his wife and children at their pilgrimage to Mass every Sunday. 

“Tell him not to bore everyone,” he’d rasped at her, not a month previous. “I don’t want some droning eulogy.”

Maggie drives while her mother sits in the front seat of their father’s old car and William folds himself into the back seat. He has his father’s legs and height, long and skinny in his somber grey suit and blue tie. They follow the hearse down the streets with a police escort at the front and rear of the parade. On the radio, static-laden oldies play. Mulder listened to one radio station other than NPR and it played songs from his heyday with an occasional gruff commentary here and there. No one changes the station, perhaps out of respect, but more likely because it has become nothing more than a buzz in the background. The static and the rain and a 70s rock and roll hit are a soundtrack to the drive. They do not speak, not out of awkwardness but because there is nothing to say. Static between songs and then the Bee Gees croon about the depth of their love. Dana sets her jaw, trying to hold her tears for the moment and wishes for nothing more than her husband’s arms around her. 

_ God, Mulder. _

In the cemetery, the priest speaks again, gesturing over the coffin. He speaks of the eternal life after the earthly one and the host of angels waiting to meet Fox Mulder, though he adds with a dry chuckle that the older man is probably already beginning to drive the heavenly hosts crazy asking which of his cases had been paranormal and who was in charge and if the coffee was any better up there. 

_ Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.  _

Remember man that you are dust and to dust you shall return. 

Flowers on the coffin before it’s lowered into the ground and after the rest of the funeral goers have shuffled back to their cars, the three Mulders are left, watching the fake grass and scaffolding be pulled up, the dirt filling the grave. A temporary marker sticks in the ground while the headstone Dana picked out waits in the cemetery’s building for the ground to settle and dry so that it can be properly set. The inscription reads:

_ Fox William Mulder.  _

_ Father, husband, friend.  _

_ True believer. _

They drive back to the house where her niece is setting out funeral casseroles and people pay their respects over glasses of wine and mugs of coffee. Her grandchildren are probably sneaking what sweets they can get while no one is looking.

“Go on in,” their mother says. “I want to sit with your dad for a minute.”

Maggie leaves the car running and William leaves the umbrella.

“We’ll be inside when you’re ready, mom.”

The radio played Stairway to Heaven and she smiled at it, watery.

“God, Mulder. You’d better be making me a decent place up there, because I’m not leaving you unattended for too long.” A watery laugh, one through sniffling tears because she misses him so damn much and he’s only been gone a few days. On the radio, a gruff voice announces a special message for G-Woman and startled, Dana turns the radio up.

“We got this recording to play about four days ago, so here you go, G-Woman, whoever you are,” the radio DJ said.

And then Mulder’s voice is on the radio.

“Hey Scully.” She is already in tears again, drinking in the sound of his voice.

“Sorry you had such a bad couple of days. I was always making trouble for you, huh?”

“You were,” she agrees quietly.

“Well it’s going to be a while, but I wanted to let you know that it was all worth it. Believing, I mean. And you were the greatest thing I ever believed in. This one’s for you. We always did walk a different road.”

Lou Reed’s ‘Walk On the Wild Side’ came on and she is laughing and crying at the same time, alone in her husband’s car in the rain while her family waits inside. Next to the front steps, a violet crocus peeps out from the still-slushy flowerbed. In the kitchen is light and warmth and her children, hers and Mulder’s and in the house is a lifetime of memories. After the song ends and another begins, she turns the car off and opens her umbrella, walking up the brick steps to her family.

When they buried their mother several years later and settled her in the same plot as their father, her name and inscription fresher than their father’s, Margaret and William made an odd observation. Neither could remember adding an additional inscription onto the stone, but there one was, hovering above both names.

_ Two in five billion. _

  
  



End file.
